Before joining the team of Weta Digital in 2006, Mike Cozens worked at Hybride on projects such as SIN CITY or 300. At Weta Digital, he worked on Avatar, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, or the trilogy The Hobbit.

The big winner out of the competing feature films was Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, with Weta Digital’s VFX team, led by Joe Letteri, picking up the award for “Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Photoreal/Live Action Feature Motion Picture”.

When Weta Digital won a visual effects Oscar in 2002 for its first blockbuster film, The Lord of the Rings, it was a fledgling studio. Since then, Weta Digital artists have brought home four more Oscars, five BAFTAs, and numerous other awards and nominations.

Congratulations to our talented VFX team at Weta Digital led by Daniel Barrett, Paul Story, Eteuati Tema, Alessandro Bonora, and Dejan Momcilovic for their Annie Award win: Character Animation in a Live Action Film for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes!

Some of the most stunning recent digital hair and fur work on film - think Caesar, Maurice and hundreds of apes in the new Planet of the Apes films, Middle-earth creatures from the Hobbit trilogy, Snowy in Tintin - has come out of Weta Digital, owing in part to the studio’s Barbershop hair groom system.

The Critics’ Choice Movie Awards are bestowed annually by the Broadcast Film Critics Association to honor the finest in cinematic achievement. Best Visual effects went to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth films have heralded incredible advancements in filmmaking and visual effects technologies, particularly from Weta Digital. We break down some of the particular advancements made on this most recent adventure.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 21 scientific and technical achievements represented by 58 individual award recipients will be honored at its annual Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation on Saturday, February 7, at the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills. Weta Digital will be recognized for their Barbershop hair grooming system.

The Visual Effects Society has announced the nominees for its 13th Annual VES Awards. "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," leads the way with five nominations total, while Weta's other big player, "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies," isn't far behind with four.

Peter Jackson concludes his "Hobbit" trilogy and Tolkien six-pack with a bang, and "The Battle of the Five Armies" delivers the most impressive action of the director's career, recalling D.W. Griffith and Ray Harryhausen.

We are very pleased to announce that both Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies have received Best Visual Effects nominations for the Critics’ Choice Awards, which will be held January 15.

Andy Serkis' amazing Caesar is still the one to beat. Weta Digital revamped its performance capture system, and went more photo-real by shooting outdoors under less than ideal conditions. Added detail and fidelity of performance weren’t enough: the process had to hold up to the rough elements as well as the scrutiny of IMAX 3-D, which provides further depth and dynamic composition.

“Realism informs everything that we do. But there’s no way to get all of the science absolutely right. Most of it is still unknown, or can’t be solved exactly. So in the end we use artistic interpretation and instinct to make audiences believe in what they are seeing.”

Twenty years on, Weta Digital is more than holding its own in a hugely competitive and fast-moving industry. As Weta celebrates its 20th anniversary, Lynn Freeman met long-serving Visual Effects Supervisor Wayne Stables at Park Road Post to find out what's changed in VFX, and what's the hardest thing to create on screen.

Here now is my full interview with Weta’s Dan Lemmon, in which we discuss building these digital characters, the technological advances that made it possible, the cinematography, and what the future has in store for Weta and performance capture

The visual effects on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes topped last year’s Oscar winner Gravity, to win the feature VFX category at the 9th annual Hollywood Post Alliance Awards, Thursday at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.

The Hollywood Post Alliance announced its 2014 HPA Award winners at a ceremony held at the event's usual venue, the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Weta Digital's team of Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Erik Winquist, Keith Miller and Paul Story won Outstanding Visual Effects — Feature Film for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Get a behind-the-scenes look at the special effects in #DawnofApes this Mon, 1pm, at #AFIFEST. This presentation will explore the history of how Weta Digital's artists have evolved their technology and techniques over the last 20 years and focus on an in-depth case study of the innovation in performance and effects as seen in DAWN OF THE PLANET OF APES. Panelists include Weta Digital Visual Effects Supervisor Dan Lemmon.

If you’ve ever wondered just how much of Benedict Cumberbatch there is in Smaug, we have a Thursday treat for you. This fascinating extra from The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug’s forthcoming home-formats release pulls back the curtain on an off-set performance that’s as much physical as it is vocal.

Twenty years later, Aitken, now Weta Digital's visual effects supervisor, sits in the plush "reading room" in Park Road Post Production's complex in Miramar, marvelling at what two men and a single computer have transformed into.

The winners of the AEAF Awards 2014 have been announced at a wonderful Awards evening in central Sydney on 27 August. Weta Digital topped the Feature Films VFX list with ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ for its striking animation and compositing.

Before joining Weta Digital in 2001, Dave Houghton worked at Cinesite in London on films such as TOMORROW NEVER DIES or LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER. At Weta Digital, he worked on the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, KING KONG, AVATAR or MAN OF STEEL.

It’s been quite the summer for bar-raising in the visual effects arena. Among the seasonal entrants boasting convincing otherworldly visuals, is the latest installment in Fox’s rebooted Planet of the Apes series, Dawn of the Planet of Apes.

After many years as one of the world’s largest and most accomplished visual effects studios, Weta Digital began a research project that has evolved into their own full blown physically-based production renderer: Manuka.

Dawn of Planet of Apes focuses on an ape who deals with Shakespearean issues of betrayal, family and conflict. While Rise was lead by a human cast with amazing ape effects, Dawn is an ‘ape film’, with the principal actors – the lead actors – as digital primates.

In the latest incarnation of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Andy Serkis and Toby Kebbell deliver human motion-capture performances to help bring the realistic apes to life. Shot with a combination of high-speed cameras, Mike Seymour breaks down the tech behind shooting the motion-capture scenes on location versus on a sound stage

Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Joe Letteri of Weta Digital recently sat down with Variety features editor David Cohen to discuss the making of 20th Century Fox’s “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.”

Adriene Hurst at Digital Media World recently viewed an early footage presentation from the upcoming release of ‘Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes’, and talked about the project with VFX Supervisor Erik Winquist from Weta Digital.

“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” which opens July 11, is a 3-D filmmaking feat. A technical crew of hundreds at Weta Digital studios in New Zealand labored for a year to composite some 1,200 special effects shots

As animation supervisor at Weta Digital, Dave Clayton knows a thing or two about creating virtual worlds. To celebrate the launch of The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug on DVD and Blu-ray, we had a quick chat with Dave about some of the work he’s done with Weta.

The VES Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture award goes to Smaug! Congratulations to our nominees and winners, and to all the artists recognized at the 2014 VESawards. Stunning work as always.

The official BAFTA list of nominees for 2014 includes Weta Digital's Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and Eric Reynolds for their work on 'The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug', and and Guy Williams for Iron Man 3.

When fxguide recently covered the visual effects of The Wolverine, we marveled at the transition shots of Yashida from an old man to his younger self in the film’s final confrontation completed by Weta Digital.

A dramatic train-top fight, a CG Silver Samurai and, of course, Wolverine’s claws. See breakdowns of some of the major shots, sequences and previs work in the film from Weta Digital and other VFX houses.

Act I of the film takes place on Krypton, facing destruction from an instable core. Weta Digital created alien planet environments, creatures and also the key means of display – a technology the filmmakers came to call ‘liquid geo’ meaning liquid geometry.

Weta Digital is proud to once again be a partner and participant at FMX. Be sure to check out Weta Digital's Iron Man 3 presentation by Guy Williams and Aaron Gilman which will shed light on 36 different Iron Man suits, the seaport environment building and more.

EW caught up with Joe Letteri to talk about the changing face of digital effects and its unexpected journey toward the spiritual center of acting craft. Also, check out a new sizzle reel of The Hobbit.

After the release of 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey', I spoke with Letteri about his latest trip to Middle-earth for which he has now been recognized with a seventh Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects.

The visual effects world has never been the glamorous side of Hollywood, but the artists at Weta Digital charged with creating the grotesque Goblin King in “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” surely have the best claim to hard labor in this year’s Oscar race.

For their foundational research in the creation of computer-generated characters, J.P. Lewis, Matt Cordner and Nickson Fong will receive a Technical Achievement Award (Academy Certificate) for the invention and publication of the Pose Space Deformation (PSD) technique.

Oscar nominations are out and Weta Digital has secured 3 for the Visual Effects Oscar! Congratulations to our nominees: Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and R. Christopher White for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Guy Williams for The Avengers and Martin Hill for Prometheus.

Academy announces 9 Sci-Tech winners including Weta Digitals' J.P. Lewis for the invention and publication of the Pose Space Deformation technique, and Simon Clutterbuck and James Jacobs for the development of the Tissue Physically–Based Character Simulation Framework.

The film’s Wellington-based visual effects supervisor Guy Williams has worked on a number of big-budget flicks including Avatar, King Kong and XMen: The Last Stand, but says The Avengers was the kind of project that is less work and more play.